Written by

JOHN HERRICK

Free Press Correspondent

Jenness was referring to the experience of the asylum seekers that pass through cold Vermont in their course from persecution in their home country to refuge in another.

Jenness is both a legal assistant and an advocate for asylum seekers and immigrants. She has spent time in the courtroom assisting detained immigrants in removal proceedings and traversing northern Vermont providing shelter and transportation for troubled asylum seekers.

A story on her wall details the struggle of living in a refugee camp whereby some Haitians eat “mud cakes” to meet their nutritional needs. This cake is a combination of butter, salt, water and dirt.

Jenness said that such living conditions justify a need for asylum. For those who are caught in the United States without relief from deportation, it is her job to defend that opinion as an accredited representative under the Board of Immigration Appeals.

“Being deported is life or death oftentimes,” she said.

Jenness came to Vermont after she completed her degree in Latin American studies at the University of New Mexico. In Vermont, she translated for one of her neighbors who was hosting two Guatemalan farmers and decided that working with immigrants was what she wanted to do.

“I thought this was it. I’ve been with it ever since,” she said.

She began her work volunteering for the organization, formerly known as Vermont Refugee Assistance, as a northern border coordinator. She would transport and house those caught at the U.S./Canada border.

“That was like, I go pick up the family in the middle of the night,” she said. “The border officials would call us up say, ‘there’s a family here, come and get them.’”

She once brought a Russian man to Boston. Through a conversation with an interpreter, she learned that the man no longer wished to go to Canada. Instead, he wanted to return to his wife and kids. It was Jenness’ job to send him home.

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She had to bring him to Boston so that he could then take a bus to Kennedy Airport in New York for his flight. From Vermont to Boston, the two used pictures to communicate without the interpreter.

“‘This is number one. Show this to the driver, here,’” she said to the man.

Given the uncertainty of an asylum seeker’s journey, Jenness is surprised by the trust given to her and her colleagues.

“Every time, I couldn’t believe the gift of people’s trust,” she said. “You arrive at a bus and some complete stranger is there to take you home.”

She said that even though the volunteers were not allowed to inquire about the story of their clients, strong relationships between them formed.

“It made incredible bonds between members of this community and people fleeing torture, organized violence or persecution in their home country,” she said. “It became very personal.”

According to the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s removal statistics, 245,601 individuals were deported in 2007. That number grew to 319,077 in 2011.

It’s hard to know how many people are deported from Vermont because the origin of their cases is not well documented. Jenness said that people have been sent as far as Texas to then be removed from the U.S.

“Where is the cheap bed space? It’s really hard to say where they originated,” Jenness said.

Last year, 56 percent of those deported were criminal offenders, an 89 percent increase from the year 2008. However, Jenness said that such figures as they relate to crime are misleading because entry without inspection is now a misdemeanor.

“Yeah they prioritized criminal aliens, but we have criminalized a lot of them,” she said. “The rate of people getting charged under entry without inspection has gone up. These aren’t dangerous criminals.”

She said that because illegal presence in the United States is a civil violation, many immigrants and asylum seekers do not have public defenders for representation in civil court. Many represent themselves.

Jenness said that winning these cases is a rewarding experience.

“That makes your day, you get somebody out of jail,” she said.

Though the organization operates in Vermont, the name travels the world through the experiences communicated by word of mouth and advertisements etched into the bathroom stalls at airports.

Jenness said her job is not just about immigration rights. Instead, it is about human rights.

“Everybody should have the right to live safely,” she said. “I don’t have any qualms about that.”